Beware of strangers bearing Hallmark E-Cards. The Hallmark E-Card phish from last summer is back again. Bearing the Hallmark logo, a somewhat reasonable set of options, and sporting a gradient design, it looks almost believable.
Don't be phish bait, look for clues before clicking
Take a look at the top targets from April 2008:
(Source: PhishTank)
Top 10 Identified Targets Valid Phishes
1 PayPal 3,980
2 Bank of America Corporation 3,750
3 eBay, Inc. 2,508
4 HSBC Group 1,181
5 NatWest Bank 223
6 Poste Italiane 152
7 HSBC 105
8 Wells Fargo 104
9 JPMorgan Chase and Co. 86
10 Banca di Roma 77
Five Quick Questions to Help Identify Phish
1) Are there obvious misspellings?One of these days, phishers will have to invest in a decent spell checker. In the Hallmark example, they spelled 'received' correctly in the subject line but not the two other occurrences in the body of the email.
2) Who is the email addressed to?
Is the email personalized? Have they got your name spelled correctly? In the Hallmark example again, I would reasonably expect it to be addressed to me by name with a reference to the sender, thus increasing the likelihood I would open the e-card.
3) What is the offer?
Whether it is the IRS refund trick or the "we need your account number" banking scam, take five seconds to consider if the offer makes sense. 'Nuff said.
4) Where does the link take you?View the source of your suspicious email to see where the link will take you. Also keep an eye out for non-US domains, a link ending in .cn or .cz, - or with a '.exe', etc. should be viewed with suspicion.
5) Is your browser up-to-date?
While by no means foolproof, Firefox (Firefox 2 uses Google anti-phishing software) and IE among others rely on phishing lists to protect users from accessing these sites. A strong anti-spam package can also help.
Phishers are a sneaky bunch and use a variety of tricks to deceive their victims. While this blog post is by no means comprehensive, it will hopefully offer a few clues on identifying phish emails.
Get more info on phish, including recent phish sightings a PhishTank
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